A Hard Woman to Kill (The DCI Hanlon Series) Read Free Page A

different. I have seen your file.’
    You have done what? thought Hanlon. Her thoughts – alarm, rage and wonder – were painfully transparent to the Russian opposite.
    Oksana said simply, ‘You cannot trust government. Like I said.’
    ‘So you’ve read my file.’ Hanlon’s voice was low, menacing. Hanlon was a very private person and the idea that someone like Oksana could access it was as alarming as it was enraging. How the hell had that happened?
    ‘Yes. Charlie’s firm has many connections. It is think tank, it has many government connections.’
    ‘Oh, does it now,’ said Hanlon menacingly.
    She had a mad desire to leap over the desk and smack the woman opposite hard across the face. What right have you to review my life? she thought. Not even my account of my life either, but that of some official. Presumably it went into detail as to why I’m stuck here, in Missing Persons, cleared of any serious charges but deemed unsuitable for front-line police work. Better deployed in back-office jobs, like this.
    Oksana smiled. ‘Yes. You are not corrupt, Hanlon, you are just crazy. I read your file. It is all there.’
    ‘Is it?’ asked Hanlon. I very much doubt that, she thought bitterly. My side of things won’t be there. So much for data protection.
    Taverner’s widow nodded. ‘But back to Charlie. In Russia we say navomnye ubiistvi . Contract killing. If I go to normal police, I think nothing will happen.’ She paused and her long fingers with their shapely ox-blood nails played with her expensive Hermès scarf. ‘They know Charlie is missing, they will go through motions, that is all.’ She frowned angrily. ‘I have spoken to some policeman already. He asked me if I knew Charlie liked to go to see whores.’ A contemptuous look flickered across her face. ‘Yes, I say, is where his contact is. This policeman, he as good as told me that he was with some whore for sex, not information.’ Oksana made an expansive gesture with her hands. The movement encompassed her incomparable body, her beautiful face. Look at me, it said, look at me.
    Hanlon looked at her as Charlie had almost certainly done, five feet ten of unbelievable sex appeal. Oksana nodded at her. Look what Charlie got for free at home. No sex worker was going to compete with her, that was for sure.
    ‘You can make things happen, I know this,’ she said. ‘I read your file. Facts are facts.’
    I could help you, thought Hanlon, looking at her, but I’m not going to. I can’t fight the world’s battles. She thought of Mark Whiteside lying silently in the room in the hospital in his drug-induced coma. The sands of time were running out for him. Maybe Taverner was dead; she had the living to attend to. She had her own priorities and Oksana’s husband was not one of them. Priorities. She shook her head.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Finality was in her voice. ‘Speak to Corrigan. He’ll help.’
    Oksana leaned forward. ‘Please, I beg you. Charlie is dead. I cannot bring him back. In Russia I cannot touch his killers. Here, you can. Please will you help me?’
    ‘No,’ said Hanlon simply.
    The Russian woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘None of us can bring back dead, that I do not expect. What I was hoping for was justice, an eye for an eye, as they say. A life for a life.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Hanlon’s voice was curt.
    Oksana recognized the irrevocability in Hanlon’s tone. She stood up, tall and elegant. Hanlon had rarely seen such a beautiful woman. She even smelled fantastic; some expensive light floral perfume that Hanlon didn’t recognize. The Russian woman had a point. If you had Oksana to come home to, you wouldn’t want to play away. She also revised her earlier opinion of Taverner. Oksana was not the kind of woman to just want a sugar daddy. And there was no doubt that she cared very much for her missing husband.
    Her almond-shaped brown eyes rested contemptuously on Hanlon. ‘So the vor and his suki , his bitch Belanov, have